The Global Warming Heretic - NYTimes On Freeman Dyson
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts."
Interesting how so many people who know NOTHING about Science are SO sure that global warming is caused by man. Such dogma reminds me of the times of the 16th century Inquisition: no amount of evidence will ever convince the nutcase warmists that there MIGHT be a possibility that global warming is not caused by humans.
Dyson is a top physicist. Just because he dared to go against the mainstream dogma, people seem to want to lynch him. I thought that we, humans, had evolved from our tribal and primitive ways. But we still get carried away by mass hysteria and delusion.
There's no place for politics or ideology in Science. Only observation and experiment matter. Dyson is not alone. Many other physicists have been cautious and warned that we should not jump to conclusions based on noisy, ambiguous and incomplete data. They, too, were ostracized. So much for tolerance...
No need to do that. Socrates was saying the same thing two thousand years ago.
I've come to the conclusion from watching other people that some people just have to know. I guess I can understand. It has to be hard to spend your life studying in a certain field and end up with "Well gee. It sorta looks this way guys, but we don't really know."
When people slam the church for all the bad things they did in the past, they miss an important point -- the common denominator isn't religion, it's people. Certain people want to believe their stuff fervently. They want to believe that their belief system holds critical truths, and they want to persecute and ostracize those who fail to fall in line. It's not a problem with religion. It's humans that are the cause of this behavior.
So it's not surprising to see church attendance down and scientific religious-thinking up. All those folks had to go somewhere, right?
Science is not perfect. After all, Science is a human activity and humans are not perfect. Ideally, there should be no place for dogma in Science. In practise, there is some. Still, let us put things in perspective: Science is inherently non-dogmatic, while Religion is inherently dogmatic. I am not diminishing one nor the other. I am observing that they have entirely different essences and domains.
The goal of Science is not to attain an "absolute truth". Indeed, one may study Quantum Mechanics for a lifetime and still feel uneasy about it. But the truth is that just as long as we can explain experimental results and observations with our scientific theories, we are making progress. No scientist will ever know everything about his field, but that does not mean he can't contribute to it.
For centuries Newtonian Mechanics dominated. Then Einstein came up with his Theory of Relativity that could explain, for instance, the anomalous orbit of Mercury. In a few years, his theory was accepted. There was dogma, but it was not a big obstacle. By contrast, many religious fanatics in the U.S. in the 1960s still believed the Earth was flat, and when confronted with photos taken from Space they replied "OK, it looks a bit roundish at the edges." That is dogma. That is close-mindedness. It's not Religion's fault, it's a problem with us, humans (like you mentioned).
In Science one should always keep a fresh mind and be willing to accept what goes against the dogma. Otherwise, we will end up in a new dark age where we have advanced technology but no true knowledge.
My point was about human nature, not about religion.
I really wish Kuhn was taught as much as Newton. I think what he discovered -- the human nature of the people who practice science and how it influences the study of science -- is just as important. Maybe more so.
There is no affirmative for theories and models, but our inability to falsify them for the time being.
Do you know what a stampede is? It's a frightening thing, where a large herd of animals is frightened and begin to run. They run and run, trampeling anything in their path, killing anything that gets in front of them, and each other, as they run from the danger on their heals. Never would the danger they flee cause nearly the harm that the stampede itself causes.
There are groups in the world that can stampede the human herd as well. The amount of stampeding that's been happening in the last 10 years is amazing. We stampede through this Patriot Act, and that Stimulus Plan, and the global warming stampede has been worse than both of them.
Take a breath. Time is not of the essence. When somebody tell you that, they're trying to make you rush to judgment and make a poor decision. Timeshare salesman do it, politicians do it, and I'm sorry to tell you, Al Gore does it.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071119122043.ht...
These are the risks mentioned in the IPCC Synthesis report. The seem sound and reasonable.
* The report says that around 20 per cent to 30 per cent of the plant and animal species assessed are likely to be at increased risk of extinction if global average temperatures exceed 1.5 degree C to 2.5 degree C over late 20th century levels.
* The report also points to the likelihood of "irreversible" impacts. For example if temperature increases exceed about 3.5 degrees C, between 40 per cent and 70 per cent of the species assessed might be at increased risk of extinction.
* Increases in sea surface temperatures of about one-three degrees C are projected to result in more "frequent coral bleaching events and widespread mortality."
* There is also concern over the oceans and seas becoming more acidic as they absorb rising levels of carbon dioxide and the impacts on "marine shell-forming organisms" like coral reefs.
* Other reasons for concern focus on the risks of extreme weather events with higher confidence in the projected increases in droughts, heatwaves and floods as well as their adverse impacts.
* The report also flags up concern that the poor and the elderly in low-latitude and less-developed areas including those in dry areas and living on mega-deltas are likely to suffer most.
* There is high confidence that by mid-century "many semi-arid areas, for example the Mediterranean basin, western United States, southern Africa and northeast Brazil, will suffer a decrease in water resources due to climate change."
* The IPCC summary also expresses concern that any benefits linked with climate change will be gone after more modest temperature rises. The guide, launched after five days of discussions in the Spanish city of Valencia, will be essential reading for delegates attending the upcoming UN climate convention meeting in Bali, Indonesia.
* Concern is also raised that new observations linked with the Greenland and possibly Antarctic ice sheets may mean that the rate of ice loss will increase above previous forecasts.Trying to frame issues of energy production as "skepticism" versus "alarmism" betrays the complexity of the problems that we face. We cannot allow reasonable doubt to be equated with inaction, but we must take what steps we can with what we do know.
The "various complex mechanisms" are precisely what people are discussing and might not be well enough understood.
But sure, eventually the planet will cool again - at the latest when the sun dies.
I'm calling your BS. There are very few if any people who believe that it is impossible that global warming is not caused by man. I don't think I've ever heard that view expressed in the media, even once.
Are you saying that nobody claims that the observed global warming could not be caused by natural causes, and thus the warming must have been caused by man? For if you are claiming this, I think you are wrong.
There are definitely a few very influential people claiming that climate change can only have been caused by man: "Only anthropogenic forcing of climate, however, can explain the recent anomalous warming in the late 20th century." http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/jones2004/jones2004.html
This is from the abstract of a paper co-authored by Michael Mann, the lead author of the IPCC report on climate change.
Or am I misreading your negations as well?
A) I think that very few people actually believe that global warming could only be caused by anthropogenic forces.
B) I've never actually heard anyone claim that global warming could only be caused by anthropogenic forces, so if people are even saying that then they are in a small minority.
(The difference between A and B is that there may be people who say global warming can only be anthropogenic for political reasons even if they don't believe it. However, I'm saying that even the people who say this are a very small minority.)
Now clearly your quote supports your claim that Mann is saying this, at least in the abstract. However, my guess is that he's saying this more for political reasons than scientific ones. Which IMHO is reasonable, considering that implementing a legally binding cap on carbon emissions is the best course of action considering what we know today.
The IPCC AR4 statement on this matter (presumably written or at least approved by Mann) has this to say: "The observed widespread warming of the atmosphere and ocean, together with ice mass loss, support the conclusion that it is extremely unlikely that global climate change of the past 50 years can be explained without external forcing and very likely that it is not due to known natural causes alone." p.39, http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/syr/ar4_syr.pdf
While there is an important difference between 'impossible' and 'extremely unlikely', I think a journalist or lay reader could reasonably conclude that the scientific consensus (as represented by the IPCC report) is that warming could only be caused by anthropegenic forces.
'Of the causes we have been able to identify - Only anthropogenic forcing of climate, however, can explain the recent anomalous warming in the late 20th century.'
I also see 'can explain' is 'the we can explain'. You are encouraged not to use the first person in these sort of papers.
The masses generally believe the media, and the media acknowledges the possibility of non-anthropogenic warming. If you are saying that the scientific establishment is 100% sure of AGW, then you just completely skewered your own argument.
People who know NOTHING about Science fall squarely in the "warmists" camp. The "nutcases", "tribal", or "primitives", eh?
Certainly your own biases, politics, and ideology aren't apparent from your prose, right?
Plenty of good scientists besides Freeman Dyson (one of my own personal heroes) have looked at the good science on the issue, and have concluded man's activities are causing harm.
The confusing part is why the global warming deniers would so instantly rush to him as verification of their views.
OK, let us say that we have a mathematical model of the global climate: a bunch of partial differential equations describing heat and mass flow, etc etc etc. Since humans burn fuels and release C02 on the atmosphere, it is obvious that man influences the weather. The real question is not "whether", but "how much". The Sun's cycles also influence the weather. Varying levels of cosmic radiation also influence the weather.
And if it's possible that the climate is indeed changing dramatically, what does "global warming" actually mean? The max temperatures are rising? Or does it mean that the average temperatures are rising? This is such a complex problem that interpreting it as a "yes / no question" is infuriating to say the least. Some people want to compress the entire global climate problem in one single bit of information. It's pathetic.
And what pisses me off is that there are hords of ignorants who believe this is a "religious war" against big oil and corporate America and claim that anyone who dissents is an heretic who was bought by the dirty capitalists and who should be burned at the stake.
Not intended as a flame, of course - just trying to point out that you are kind of proving his point.
No. You didn't get the point. Sorry for not making it explicit. The point is: people who are not trained in Science (Climate Modeling in particular, Physics in general) are not qualified to speak on the topic. Their opinions count for nothing because those are based on emotion, misinformation, ideology, or plain dogma. In the old days, people seemed to know the boundaries of their knowledge, now everybody who has internet access believes he / she is an instant expert.
And if non-experts are not qualified to speak, how do you justify letting them vote? Not saying democracy is perfect, but apparently there was a thought that even if people are not experts, they might be able to inform themselves sufficiently to be able to decide which experts to trust.
I'm not certain which country you live in. If you're in the U.S., you're not living in a democracy, you're living in a republic. There is a strong agenda by many people to turn it into a democracy, merely by saying it is one, and that is working, but by law, it's a republic.
Democracies tend to disintegrate rapidly as the populace votes themselves beer and circuses. You see that beginning to happen now, don't you? The populace is not, and can not, be trusted to act in a fair, impartial, and informed manner. They're a mob. Look at the public lynching we almost had with the AIG folks? Even the attorneys general of New York and Connecticut got into the act.
When the populace proves themselves too lazy to carefully consider the repercussions of their decisions, and too proud to admit they do not know the repercussions of their decisions, then it can't end well.
This will not end well.
I don't want to defend democracy, but it seems that it is not trivial to come up with a better system, and "don't give non-experts the permission to speak" won't cut it in my opinion. As soon as you start going down that road, a lot of other issues crop up.
Stronger, faster and more direct feedback can enhance control loops without adding more sophistication otherwise.
More data usually beats better algorithms. (http://anand.typepad.com/datawocky/2008/03/more-data-usual.h...)
The entire democratic system is built on the ability for the common man to make decisions about matters in which he is not an expert.
This is my problem with the global warming discussion, no matter what the outcome -- no matter who is right or wrong on it. At the heart of it, it's a threat to the core principles underlying the vote.
That's why it's near the top of my list of political things to care about.
Scientists should investigate and report their findings. Politicians should decide what to do. People elect politicians, not scientists. That's the way it should work. Democracy is not in danger.
However, we now see politicians doing (pseudo-)science (Al Gore is a prime example) and reporting it to the ignorant masses. And we have scientists claiming that they should decide what to do. The world is upside down.
Even without knowledge in climate modeling, some things can be easily seen. For example it seems obvious that there is a debate on man made warming - some experts seem to consider it likely, others not. Credentials of experts can be checked to some degree without expertise in climate modeling, too. And so on - at every level of knowledge, it is possible to make an estimate of the probabilities, I should think.
Also, I think it is often politicians who decide which scientists get funding for their research, so in a way people do elect scientists (not sure how the system works in the US).
You are totally right. And, in my humble opinion, it's dangerous when politicians alone decide what should be investigated and studied. It creates a situation where "intellectual prostitution" is the norm. Scientists know what the funding agencies want to hear, and write grant proposals accordingly. A monoculture is born. No one works outside the mainstream ideas.
Focusing on some areas is good because it creates momentum and leads to faster progress. For instance, in the 1950s and 1960s, the investment in the space program led to an amazingly fast progress. This was good. Entire new fields were developed. On the other hand, when the government alone decides that a certain area is "evil" (e.g., stem cell research) then we have a "New Inquisition" in place. This is very bad.
In an ideal world, scientists would report their findings, politicians would propose courses of action, and people would vote for one proposal over the others. The real world is a whole lot less perfect.
The trouble is the money comes out of the pocket books of non-scientists. And they must be able to make the judgment, of whether or not climate modeling is the equivalent of chemistry or of alchemy. The alchemist is not just going to come out and tell you that his whole field is full of mistakes, and that you should cut off funding. Thus when the money of the laity is at stake, there is no avoiding having the laity make opinions about the details of climate science.
How do we define "trained"? Since the subject in question is the consequences of global warming (not whether warming is occurring), why does training in Physics qualify one to pontificate on what is largely a biology question?
Also, you seem to define scientists in a way that suggests that they're not subject to emotion, misinformation, ideology, or plain dogma. Sadly, this is not the case.
To make an informed decision, which is what our politicians in Washington are supposed to do, not just respond to populism and mob voice, you need somebody to inform you. Lobbyists do that. That's their job. To inform congressmen and senators. What that politician does with that information, and how he verifies it's truth is another matter.
I suppose I would support your right to try to convince others to a point of view that you know nothing about. But in a better world than we live in, people would seriously question the wisdom of doing this, and talk about baseball instead.
And aren't the politicians replacing responding to populism and mob voice with the loudest voices nearest them? Especially those that may finance the politicians' agendas?
I am frequently bewildered by some of the decisions made and enacted/codified into law, and must conclude that I obviously do not understand all of the agendas being served in those instances.
It is beginning to seem to me that the current lobbying system is akin to the current union system in that it may no longer be as beneficial as it once was in its current form.
Might they not already exist?
If we can make one robust enough and popular enough, maybe it can be the model (or the actual tool) used by our wonderful pols...
As an example: I remember reading in "the armchair economist" how the author was angry at environmentalists because they denied him the right to pollute the environment if he was willing to shell out the money for it. He mentions that it might be worth 50$ per year to him to make sure lions don't go extinct, but not much more than that. Well maybe it would be worth 1000000$ per year to another person, but that person does not have the 1000000$ per year.
Tough luck one could say, but by that one would assume a certain definition of what is fair, and it is not obvious what consequences that definition would have in the long run.
Even if global warming is only partially manmade, shouldn't we do what we can to minimize the effect? And plain old pollution is a visible problem regardless of warming effects; it's now in our food and water supply.
That is how I see this issue. Hope that is a reasonable approach considering all the FUD out there. I don't see how society is harmed by erring on the side of caution on this one.
Let me try to help you see then.
Even though it's extremely important that you prevent tooth decay, and even if you have a huge chunk of "Jolly Rancher" stuck between your teeth, it would be a non-optimal use of resources to use your last match as you were shivering on the side of a mountain with a broken leg, to dislodge the offending piece of candy.
I'm sure you'll agree with this, in this extreme case. But what you are missing, is that humans have a limited supply of productivity that we use to feed and house the populations of our respective countries, and hopefully, to build infrastructure for the next generation to feed and house their populations. When you siphon off that productivity to dislodge a piece of candy, you better be damn sure the candy is going to harm you. In the case of the warmists, since you are literally stealing food and medicine from people's mouths with your demands of what is necessary, you better be damn certain you're right.
As we're writing the check to the cloud-seeding company, or the volcano corking company, it occurs to you, that there's a lot of things you could do with this money. You could use it to try to stop Iraq from developing biological weapons to kill hundred of thousands with, for instance. Or, if you knew more than the French, the Israelis, and the U.S. did, or just didn't think that was a problem you cared about (let him do it, it's no skin off your nose), you still might think "Wow, I could buy DDT for every man, woman, and child in Africa with this, and save millions of lives." Or, if you didn't want to do that, since DDT is evil and might kill birds, you might think "I could build desalination plants to get the water to feed hungry people in arid climates. and give them relief now, not in 100 years."
When you have the checkbook in your hand, and you are considering choosing to spend the money on volcano corking, or, god forbid, something actually foolish, you may, instead, say "Hey, maybe we should be sure before we blow this money." I think if I gave you the checkbook, you'd think a lot differently than when somebody else has the checkbook.
First, economics isn't a zero-sum game. You could waste that check away on destroying a country and impoverishing millions due to the threat of imaginary weapons, or you could build something.
For a long time I thought wind farms were surely wasteful forms of energy. I thought about all of the energy required to manufacture them, install them, and maintain them, and compared that -- in my mind -- against all of the idle wind generators that I saw at farms like the Altamont and whatever huge one there is down in southern California.
Then I got some real numbers, and it turns out that I was pretty dramatically wrong: wind energy actually provides an even better energy-return-on-investment than nuclear energy.
So, potentially, that $600 billion could be spent building cheaper forms of energy generation using existing technology, and developing new technology, and now you've just made a steep initial investment that will pay returns for the rest of our society's existence.
That, to me, sounds like one heck of a good deal. And it's good for the environment too.
[1]: http://www.eoearth.org/article/Energy_return_on_investment_(...
Really? If we spent $20B on global warming you'd go away happy?
> is it really fair to say call spending money on what is likely essential to the preservation of our species
Interestingly enough, if you read the cost estimates from the advocates, it's reasonably cheap to deal with the problem after it occurs, at least compared to the total global GDP at that time.
The only way you get to "spend now" vs "spend later" on an economic basis is by using a negative rate of return.
Actually, he wasn't. He didn't do what you want, but that's a very different than nothing. Are you going with ignorance or "I was trying to emphasize my point"?
> I realize I phrased that poorly, and I'm sorry for that, but my point still stands: compared to what we spend on killing each other, the money that is being asked to save our whole way of life is chump change
The mainstream folks who want money for climate change disagree. They want hundreds of billions of dollars.
If they're wrong, that's a huge deal. Let's see some details supporting your "chump change" estimate. Are they wrong?
> Moreover, the issue of climate change runs much deeper than economics alone. Talking about rates of return and deferred action neglect the potential for catastrophe if we simply continue to do nothing.
Catastrophe is short-hand for "very expensive", so you're merely making a "numbers-free" economic argument.
The AGW folks have predicted the costs of "catastrophe" and "measures to avoid". (The latter are surely low because they don't significantly affect the predicted climate change.)
Once again, if they're wrong, that's a big deal.
Let's see the details.
The same goes for you - if the warmists are right, then the non-warmists are stealing food from people's mouths (as farmland will be burned or flooded or whatever).
Also it's an absolute ton of money to spend on something that hasn't been proven.
I'm of the opinion that it's unlikely we are to blame, we should obviously as always try to use less energy, and we should spend money on more important causes.
Would this discovery warrant massively restructuring the world economy by central decree in an attempt to counteract the sun? The spending of billions (trillions?) of dollars? These are the decisions you are making when you err on the side of caution.
I am -- or was, before my "startup" days -- an avid hiker, backpacker, etc.; to me, your thought experiment translates this way: Imagine that I was out hiking, and that I see a bunch of trash on the trail. Now imagine that the trash doesn't belong to me. Should I pick it up?
It doesn't make sense to me that, as a species with the ability to dramatically affect our environment, we should choose to not take care of it. It doesn't make sense to me that we would spoil our own living conditions.
To get back to your thought experiment: if the causes behind global warming were out of our control, but if the global warming had the potential to create an environment which we didn't want to live in, and if we had the power to counteract the changes, then I think it makes sense to do so.
As a practical matter, "massively restructuring the world economy" is also known as progress. We're certainly not going to burn coal in space.
Except that the next three words were "by central decree."
That said, I see your point about us humans managing our environment and making it more to our liking. We've been doing it for thousands of years. I just don't understand what basis we have for making the sort of radical changes proposed by "climate change" alarmists. How do we know the outcome will be to our liking?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_cost
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/bjorn_lomborg_sets_global...
You are of course right about rational decision making, but the estimates of the risks diverge between the groups, so they arrive at different decisions.
If you're looking for an easy way to dismiss Lomborg, you're not going to find one. The dude is not a hack.
I'm glad we didn't make a rational decision.
I'm, frankly, sick of cost-benefit analysis being applied to everything. It has become the hammer that's turning everything into a nail. It's led to a pretty ugly state of software in a lot of different arenas, because a CBA doesn't support spending much time running down memory leaks, or trying to reduce software footprint.
The problem with using CBA in software -- and more to the point, in the environment -- is that it ignores the cumulative effect of lots of small decisions. Each individual action may not make "rational" sense in terms of CBA, but the consequences quickly add up.
To go back to my specific example, you're right that our hauling out some of the trash probably had very little positive impact on our environment. However, it is the cumulative actions of us and others like us who ensure that our trails stay clean.
For yet another example, if you climb Mount Rainier in Washington, you are expected to pack out all of your waste. I would guess the average trip time to the summit and back to be about three to four days, so that means that parties must carry their poop in their pack.
From an individual cost-benefit point of view, that's ridiculous and not rational. It requires a lot of effort for -- on an individual basis -- little environmental benefit.
However, it's the cumulative impact of thousands of summit parties every year that has a very real, and very detrimental, impact on the mountain's ecology.
Basically, cost-benefit analysis is a stupid, shortsighted way to make decisions.
How does a group of people take all costs into account when doing a cost-benefit analysis if they can't agree on what constitutes a cost and what constitutes a benefit, and their relative values?
You and others here are talking about CBA as the basis for rational decision making, and yet I bet you couldn't even describe it in any formal way that could apply to all logical decisions.
What does it mean to do a CBA in terms of your immediate environment? What factors are you taking into consideration? Aesthetics? Health? How much money is clean water worth to you? Or, from a CBA standpoint: is it worth pouring a gallon of paint into your drinking water, or is it better to transport that paint to a remote facility which will handle it in some fashion? And in that one relatively minor decision alone, how many different factors are you going to account for? The size of your drinking water supply, the chemical composition of the paint, the ecology of your drinking water supply, the distance to the waste managing facility, the vehicle used to get it there, the methods the facility uses to handle it ...
This CBA hand-waving is bullshit. It's impossible to take all costs into account for this kind of stuff. Most people -- even the most knowledgeable climate scientists -- don't even know what all the costs are. So just how are we supposed to justify our environmental decisions using a CBA when you can't even correctly do the accounting in the costs column?
And this is what constitutes the basis for rational decision making? Bah! Bah, I say!
I think it's perfectly rational to make decisions based on morals and ethics, and whether or not the consequences of that decision get you closer to your goals or not. So, for example, one of my goals is to experience wilderness areas in as pristine a state as possible. I see trash there. The trash is heavy, and I have a long distance to hike out. It will cost me a great deal of effort to remove it. But, it still does help to accomplish my goal: the next time I visit that place, the trash won't be there (nor will it be there for the next visitor). Thus, I will remove it, if possible.
Is that not a rational decision-making process? Does that not make sense from an environmental standpoint, as a species?
It is foolish to give infinite value to the benefit of preserving nature. If we are willing to preserve nature at any price, then we ought to shut down industrial civilization, kill off 5.8 billion people, and go back to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. However, few people think that cost would be worth the resulting benefits to the environment.
Ignoring the costs of environmental activism is short-sighted. Environmental restrictions are not free. They cause real deprivations. We ought to acknowledge these deprivations and consider whether or not they are worth the benefits, even if there is no objective "right" answer.
Sometimes we will decide environmental rules are worth it. Banning CFCs was probably a smart idea. Sometimes, however, we will decide environmental rules are not worth the cost. The Kyoto treaty would cost hundreds of billions of dollars to implement but only push off warming by a few years.
As for the rest of your posts, sorry I just can't follow the logic. I do think cost-benefit analysis is worthwhile, though.
You initially said "I'm glad we didn't make a rational decision", and I don't agree with that sentiment at all. You are free to base your decisions on your morals and ethics, but when it comes to something as global as global warming I'm not sure you can just force them onto the rest of us.
Science is, at its most basic, our attempt to understand the world. As such, science employs many different tools and approaches, including numerical modeling. In particular. numerical analysis is a very well understood field of mathematics that allows us to rigorously analyze complicated problems by using one of the most innovative tools ever devised: the computer. Of course, one can make an inaccurate model as easily as one can write down an inaccurate equation or make a mistake in a derivation. That doesn't mean that the tool isn't a part of science.
I'm not saying the models are wrong, or that climate change doesn't exist. What I'm saying is that calling the predictions of these models "science" is a bit misleading. The underlying factors maybe be based on scientific knowledge, but the models themselves are based on statistics, not science, because they can't be empirically verified.
Anyway, it's hardly surprising that so much effort has gone into theoretical climate science, since, as you observed, it's difficult running a controlled experiment with the atmosphere.
I can't predict the behaviour of a single gas module but I can predict the behaviour of the gas as a whole as the randomness averages out.
Climate forecasting is a lot more complex a system but the daily variability, at least, averages out in the same way.
(Another analogy some people use is that we can predict that winter is colder than summer even if some days in the season aren't etc. this isn't really an argument for modeling but I suppose it's easy to grasp.)
Whoever said "the debate on Global Warming is over" ought to be forever considered a disingenuous political hack.
So how did he know that?
That means all the fractions 1/19 .. 18/19 are just rotations of each other. And 20/19 = 1 + 1/19, which means that 2/19 is a single rotation away.
If you've ever noticed that 142857 * [1..6] produces different rotations of the same number and wondered why, you might have thought about this. Dyson had probably already done all the hard work on the problem and knew immediately that the answers were rotations of some repeating fraction, and one where multiplying by 2 gives rotations by 1 digit.
The first such number, by the way, does indeed have 18 digits. I got there by considering every final digit and figuring out how long the string needed to be before the final digit reoccurred with no carry.
(edit: oops, just read your explanation below which pretty much answers this)
The process of rotating a repeating decimal expansion x by 1 digit means adding some integer n and dividing by 10.
(n + x) / 10 = 2x
Simplifying, n = 19x, i.e. x = n/19. So you know the number has to correspond to a decimal expansion of n/19, which is 18 digits in length.
For this one, I guess you'd start by narrowing it down. The number must have the start-end pair of 1,2; 2,4; 3,6; or 4,8. That narrows it down to 4E16. Then you can narrow it down further by looking at what other digit-pairs are possible. You might assume it has a palindrome in the middle, but that digits near the end are not palindroms (e.g. it could have ...1001..., but couldn't be 101....102).
At some point, you might have enough simple rules like that to just use a computer.
Edit: I'm also interested in exactly how he figured it out, though.
That way, you can at least get each digit on one side, which might make it a more tractable problem. This is very frustrating! It's easy to narrow it down a whole lot, but it's still going to be intractable.
The number in general (I said, Spoiler Alert!) can be written as _y_ _x_ where 0 <= x <= 9 and the value of the number is 10y + x. Then it must satisfy for some k
2(10y+x) = (10^k)x + y
Simplify that and you can show that 10^k - 2 must be divisible by 19, which means k=17 (or 35, or 53, ...). Once you have that, pick x = 2, 3, or 4 and solve for y, and you have your 18-digit number. (Letting x = 1 gives you an 18-digit numbers whose first digit is 0, which doesn't count.)
What are the oceans doing? If they're getting colder, the earth may well be losing heat, even if the atmosphere is getting warmer (which it hasn't been for almost a decade).
It would also be nice to know the temperature of the earth because its heat capacity dwarfs that of the oceans.
Burning carbon based materials to generate energy is, in the long term, unsustainable--there is a finite supply, and getting at the remaining sources will continue to become more expensive and more environmentally invasive (see: mountaintop removal). But enough about the environment, there are more important considerations (After all, we will eventually leave this planet, right?).
Our eventual shift to renewable sources of energy is inevitable. Worries about the consequences of climate change are finally gaining momentum in the public conscious. That means that now is the time to go full speed on development and roll-out of renewable energy. Mr. Dyson mentions that "By restricting CO2 you make life more expensive and hurt the poor."
Interesting comment from the man described as looking "like a person taking the longer view," because (given time) cheap abundant energy would do an incredible amount for the poor and starving. Deserts could be irrigated and farmed with desalinized water, pumps could preserve our coastal cities, really, the applications of cheap and abundant renewable energy are limited by our imaginations. Why leave that for our childrens' or grandchildrens' generation? What are we waiting for?
There is always a place for some healthy skepticism, but I fear that with respect to this particular issue skepticism has given the world plenty of motivation to procrastinate.
In this utopia you describe, you neglect to explain what miraculous devices will produce this infinite energy supply. I think that's an important point that you left out. If you're wrong on that point, then we've hurt people for nothing, right?
Since we're cutting and pasting from web sites, let me just paste the following from http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html , Everything else is just philosophy.
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Water vapor constitutes Earth's most significant greenhouse gas, accounting for about 95% of Earth's greenhouse effect (4). Interestingly, many "facts and figures' regarding global warming completely ignore the powerful effects of water vapor in the greenhouse system, carelessly (perhaps, deliberately) overstating human impacts as much as 20-fold.
Water vapor is 99.999% of natural origin. Other atmospheric greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), and miscellaneous other gases (CFC's, etc.), are also mostly of natural origin (except for the latter, which is mostly anthropogenic).
Human activites contribute slightly to greenhouse gas concentrations through farming, manufacturing, power generation, and transportation. However, these emissions are so dwarfed in comparison to emissions from natural sources we can do nothing about, that even the most costly efforts to limit human emissions would have a very small-- perhaps undetectable-- effect on global climate.
The bulk of what I read on water vapor stated that although the process was so far poorly understood, most scientists (for the moment) believe that increased water vapor is an amplifying side-effect, not a primary cause, of climate change. Basically, that increased temperatures lead to an increase in water vapor due to the evaporation of ice, small lakes, and rivers, and that in turn further drives climate change.
I see that most of your comments in this thread fly in the face of what most climate scientists believe to be happening.
I'd ask for sources, but there's no way to confirm that the people behind them are actual "climate scientists", whatever that means these days. It's hard to see who's who anymore, but smug confidence like this definitely rings my alarm bells.
"there's no way to confirm that the people behind them are actual "climate scientists", whatever that means"
Well, the system that we have is that of peer reviewed literature. People who are interested in environmental science or other related fields pursue research in those fields, and some happen to research climate.
Why do you put the words 'climate scientists' in quotations? Yes, there are scientists who study climate, much like there are scientists who study other environmental/biological/chemical phenomena.
"It's hard to see who's who anymore, but smug confidence like this definitely rings my alarm bells."
I'm not sure what this adds to the discussion. Could you perhaps rephrase or reword; maybe I've missed the content of the statement you intended to convey?
So I don't know who the climate scientists are. Lots of parties are making wild claims and saying science is on their side. Take http://realclimate.org/ for instance. Is this real climate science? I mean, anyone could put up a website with the words "climate science from climate scientists". How does one tell?
Though I think you're right that peer-reviewed literature gives an indication.
To comment in just this thread? No, I will probably make other posts. I lurk, and have been doing so for at least a year--so I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you. I just felt like sharing my ideas and (limited) knowledge as they relate to this topic, that is all.
"In this utopia you describe"
Utopia, as in, the part where I describe the use of desalinized water to irrigate crops, or pumps to keep sea level rise at bay? Seems pretty feasible.
"If you're wrong on that point, then we've hurt people for nothing, right?"
Are you implying that every dollar that goes to renewable energy R&D would instead go towards 'alleviating hurt'? Could I instead claim that every dollar for renewable energy R&D will come from our defense budget, leaving our 'alleviating hurt' budgets untouched? Now, are either of those reasonable assumptions?
"Since we're cutting and pasting from web sites"
I didn't cut and paste from any web site. I synthesized my own ideas. Well, except for the first two paragraphs, which came from the available literature/news sources I have ingested over the years. So, if you've read the content from the first two paragraphs on other websites, did the information concern you? Did it prompt you to do your own investigation into the available literature?
"Everything else is just philosophy."
Everything besides what the website you included says? Or parts/all of my comment? You've confused me with this statement.
If what he says were obviously wrong, he wouldn’t have achieved what he has. But Hansen has turned his science into ideology. He’s a very persuasive fellow and has the air of knowing everything. He has all the credentials. I have none. I don’t have a Ph.D. He’s published hundreds of papers on climate. I haven’t. By the public standard he’s qualified to talk and I’m not. But I do because I think I’m right. I think I have a broad view of the subject, which Hansen does not. I think it’s true my career doesn’t depend on it, whereas his does. I never claim to be an expert on climate. I think it’s more a matter of judgement than knowledge.
I especially love the point about Hansen's career hinging on his theory being borne out which seems to be a general issue with science which crosses over into the mainstream consciousness.
Dyson isn't so sure that global warming is cause by rising levels of CO2. Either way he doesn't see this as being a big problem as global warming would be a good thing for the world.
He is more a Global Warming Embracer rather than a Global Warming Denier.
Purple prose by author earnestly trying to convince you of his erudition, and constant asides that do nothing but distract - not interesting.
This is important because Dyson's opponents as a rule try some sort of character assassination instead of sticking to the subject matter.
Dyson's view is simple: he thinks the doom & gloom predictions of those who are forecasting the end of life within the next hundred years is simply not borne out by the facts.
I have several problems with all the eco-energy projects. Namely wind turbines are likely to cause more ecological problems than solve, I'm sorry but they're killing off bats in phenomenal numbers and killing a species high up on the food chain causes problems. We do it to seals, but we eat the fish that they would so ecologically it's not all that harmful... unless we're going to start eating millions of tons of bugs a year, I think killing off the bats might cause a serious problem. I mean the last thing we need are plagues of locust.
The other problem with wind turbines is that they slow local wind speeds, if this is produced on a global scale this could inhibit the transfer of energy to the night-side of earth to be radiated away. This is the same problem that wave-energy will produce, mass use of this technology will cause a reduction in water flow, which in turn will cause more energy to be stored by the water. This one is particularly unpredictable: reduced tidal action will reduce the cooling effect of water vaporisation, however this will likely be balanced by an increase in evaporation, yet this could potentially be disastrous because hotter water = stronger storms, so mass use of wave-power technologies could drastically increase tropical storms, more than global warming ever could. Hopefully the wind turbines can slow these down!
I haven't even touch on the fact that wind turbines place angular stress on the ground they sit on, which on a large scale has never been predicted. I mean we're talking about placing angular forces on entire tectonic plates that will change as the direction of the wind. The effect of this is inherently unknown, and I don't want to know what could happen at stressed fault-lines.
My problem with solar power is that it reduces the albedo of the planet and ultimately turns the electrical energy into thermal (infrared) energy, which is then trapped by CO2! Lowering the planets albedo will increase global warming even if we decrease the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, this problem will be compounded if they ever get the holy grail of solar energy, the orbital solar power plant. Placing solar power plants into space won't increase the planets albedo, however it will transfer ridiculous amounts of energy to the planet and to be viable they only need a 20-30% efficiency due to the sheer abundance of energy. However, the other 70-80% will still be absorbed by the atmosphere and convert to thermal energy. (If anyone doubts this, please put a cup of water in the microwave and this is essentially the result as 70-80% of the energy will be absorbed by the atmosphere, which is roughly equivalent to a 10 meter layer of distilled water)
Global Warming is (95% probable) a byproduct of human civilization in one way or another. However the solution proposed by environmentalists is a planet wide geo-forming project.
I think the potential for harm could be much, much greater from geo-forming the entire planet than sea levels rising. We know what global warming could do to the planet, we don't know what geo-forming could do to the planet and no one is looking at it.
Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person on the planet that realises the solutions to the problem are potentially worse than the problem itself.